From time to time in my career and in my personal life, a conflict has erupted with another person or a group that I had little or no role in creating. You have probably had the same experience. There are many more times when all parties involved, myself included, have played a role in creating discord.
What can we make of those times when others blame, criticize, ostracize, or are hostile towards us for no apparent good reason? To take one example, I once was invited to join a board of directors mainly to bring good governance practices to the group, and when I did so I was forced to resign – an experience I wrote about here.
As a mission-driven leader, you may have experienced some colleague, former colleague, donor, board member, blogger, competitor, researcher, or reporter who took it upon themselves to torment you for what felt like no discernable reason other than wanton spite or pursuing some ill-advised agenda. It’s not fun, and it does happen. In fact, if you are leading a nonprofit, you can expect to experience it sooner or later.
In recent times, I have counselled and comforted quite a few leaders who have suffered simply for doing their job diligently and even courageously. These kinds of situations seem to occur in nonprofits more often than in other professions. Perhaps this is because our field is populated by passionate people who are often underprepared for some of the responsibilities they take on.
My advice to those who find themselves in these awful situations, and to myself when I have experienced them, has evolved over the years. First, I urge them to consider, at some point in the future, that they may have done more to cause the conflict than they can see right now. A few years of time may be needed to gain the perspective needed to discern whether that is the case. For now, concluding that the fault rests entirely with others (while acknowledging that one’s own behavior is never perfect) is reasonable and appropriate.
Here is the most important part. While intellectually one should feel justified and blameless, and perhaps even high-minded and principled, these situations often take an unexpected emotional toll. Having others betray us or hold us responsible for an unfortunate situation, however far-fetched their rationale for doing so may be, is usually hurtful and deflating. It weighs us down and can lead to us being distracted or preoccupied, or experiencing self-doubt for a time.
Whenever I found myself in such a situation in the past, I would blame myself for not being able to shake off the emotional malaise since I understood that I was on solid ground in terms of my behavior and decisions. But this only made matters worse. I was upset both about others being antagonistic towards me and about my inability to laugh it off.
I have concluded that it is far better to acknowledge that on an intellectual level I can believe that I acted properly while at the same time suffering emotionally from how a situation played out. Being unable to shake off the emotional toll doesn’t mean that we are irrational or weak. Rather, it means that we are human.
In fact, acknowledging the reality of having two conflicting responses to a painful situation can be an essential first step towards healing. It may also be a strategy for resolving the issue in some way, which may be limited to having it slowly recede in one’s memory.